Airline Talk Show
Von  Art Buchwald (Herald Tribune ,1982)

Because of the stiff air competition these days, Eastern Airlines has asked its flight attendants to initiate
conversations with passengers before and after they get on the plane. Frank Bormann has requested,
that flight crews start conversations with at least two passengers in the terminal and three in the air, as a
way of showing that Eastern is friendlier in the skies than United. According to Rudy Maxa of The Washington Post, Eastern inspectors are spotchecking their employees to make shure the directive is
being carried out.
I thought it was just a publicity gimmick until I took an Eastern flight to Florida not lon ago.
I was sitting in the terminal, reading, when a comely stewardess came up to me and said, “Hi, I’m Nancy. You going to Miami?”
I look up in surprise. “Yes, and my name’s Art.”   “ Business or pleasure?” she asked.
“Sort of business. Would you like to have dinner with me?”
“Sorry, I’m happily married,” she retorted.
This got me sore and I said, “Then why did you start talking to me?”
I’m supposed to talk to two people in the terminal before we take off, and three people in the air or I’ll
lose my job.”
“You stewardesses are all alike,” I complained bitterly. “You string a guy along so he’ll fly Eastern
Airlines and when the push comes to shove, you tell him you’re happily married.”
It’s not my fault, she said almost in tears. But there could be an inspector watching me right now.
“Okay, Nancy, no hard feeelings. It’s just that no stewardess ever started a conversation with me in a
terminal.
I went back to my book untill they announced we could get on the plane. When I took my assigned seat
a stewardess whose name tag said Eileen, asked me if I wanted to hang up my coat.
“You’re just trying to start a conversation with me,” I told her.
“No I’m not. It doesn’t count if I ask a passenger if he or she wants me to hang up a coat. It doesn’t even count when I ask you to fasten your seatbelt. Our orders are we have to initiate conversations that have nothing to do with our jobs. I’ll come back and talk to you later.”
“Nancy already talked to me in the terminal,” I warned her.
“That’s okay, as long as she didn’t  talk to you in the air,” Eileen said.
I gave her my coat and went back to my book.
An hour later a stewardess wearing the name Alice stopped by my seat and said, “Would you like to chat?”
“I’d love to,” I told her. “But promised Eileen I would talk to her, after she hung up my coat.”
“She’s already talked to three people, and I haven’t talked to anyone.”
“I don’t know what to say,” I said. “She indicated she needs me.”
She tells that to all the passengers, Alice said bitterly. At that moment Eileen came and said, “This one
Belongs to me.”
Not wanting to cause any trouble I said, “Couldn’t I talk to both of you, and then you’ll each get credit for
Initiating a conversation?”
Alice said,  “I don’t know. We ask the captain.” She returned in few moments and said, “It’s okay with him as long as we don’t  make a habit of it.”
“Good,” I told them. “Would either one of you like to have dinner with me tonight?”
“I have a date,” Eileen said.
“I’m going to bed,” Alice replied. Are you enjoyingyour book? “Yes” I answered, “I like to read on airplanes”. That was it. Both Eileen and Alic left me. But a half hour later a steward named Jack came
up and said, “ I hear you’re looking for someone to have dinner with to night.”
“Buzz off,” I told him angrily, “I’m a happily married man.”